


Hole in the Wall

by mugsandpugs



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-26 05:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15657087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: "We make it work. We make us work."Lance is trying to make life better for the Brotherhood after finishing high school-- making sure they get enough to eat, working a ton of jobs to pay the bills. When Pietro starts talking about going away to college, Lance tries to untangle his complicated feelings for the other boy before it's too late.





	Hole in the Wall

It was inevitable that four boys and a revolving door of girls living unsupervised in one borderline-condemned house would come with its fair share of drama, and that was _before_ one factored in their mutant abilities. They survived high school, barely, and things got a little better afterwards. At the very least, there were more adults adding income to the communal pool. There was food. There was water. They were often too tired for ‘in-fighting’ to be more than general growling and grumbling.

But the walls were thin and cracked, and emotions frequently ran high. Control over respective powers may have improved overall, but mistakes happened.

“Alvers! _Look at this_!”

Lance hadn’t  expected to wake to Pietro leaning through his bedroom wall, right next to his Festering Boils poster, scowling fiercely with plaster dust turning his olive skin ashy.

Wait. _Through_ the wall? Since when could Pietro phase…? They were a little old to be developing secondary mutations now, weren’t they? 

“Stop staring at me like I’m made of coffee and do something!”

Christ, he was shrill at this ungodly hour. Shrill enough to force Lance out of bed, adjusting his slightly-twisted boxers as he shuffled, zombie-like, to the source of the problem. “What happened?”

“You quaked a _hole_ in my wall! What were you dreaming about?!”

Lance couldn’t remember; he so seldom remembered his dreams. But it’d been a long time since he’d had a nocturnal emission of that sort. Still, Pietro was obviously telling the truth. A new crack ran, forking like lightning, across the length of his north wall, deep enough to crumble hunks of drywall away and leave a jagged, basketball-sized hole between the two bedrooms.

Lance took all this in, absently scratching at his thigh. Then, gently laying his palm on Pietro’s forehead, he gave a shove, pushing Pietro back into his own bedroom. While Pietro sputtered angry protests, Lance picked up Todd's t-shirt from his messy bedroom floor, stuffed it into one of the deeper wall-cracks, and left it to dangle like a curtain over the new ‘window’ the two now shared. “Problem fixed,” Lance declared, and was snoring again before his body hit the bed.

* * *

"Alvers, would you quit that piss-poor excuse for ‘music’? I’m trying to study.”

“The hell are you studying for? You graduated last spring.”

“Some of us might want to get into college eventually, you know.”

“You do? Really?”

“What, you think I can’t get a full-ride scholarship now that we’re not in constant war?”

“You probably could. Okay, you definitely could. But like. How far away are we talking? You’re not _leaving,_ are you?”

“Put that guitar away and I’ll think about staying.”

* * *

“Shit, I’m late, I’m so fuckin’ late…” Lance bounced around his room, unbuttered toast half-hanging out of his mouth as he struggled to button his trousers.

“That’s what you get for putting this off til the last minute!” Despite his flippant words, Pietro sounded worried, too. If this job interview went well, if Lance got the position, money would be easier for all of them, and Todd wouldn’t have to spend his last semester of high school working at a burger joint with mutant-hating coworkers who’d become increasingly violent.

“C’mon, P, can’t you help me?!”

A moment later, the t-shirt that covered the window between their bedrooms shifted to the side, and a hand holding a thermos of coffee emerged like a peace offering. “Meet me out front when you’re decent.”

Lance snorted. “You’ve seen me naked before, P.” They’d lived together for four years; had fought side-by-side; had occasionally found release trading handjobs and blowjobs in the backseat of the Jeep on bad nights; fucking the way they drank and smoked and fought: angry, rushed, almost violent at times.

Then Lance had gotten-- and lost-- Kitty, and Pietro had steadily made his way through a series of supermodel-pretty boys, quickly losing interest in all of them shortly after Lance had finally managed to learn their names, swearing again and again that it’d be different this time, that he really _meant_ it when he said he liked them...

It wasn’t a piece of their past that warranted thinking about too much; just a blip on the radar to be excused as teenage hormones; something that shouldn’t get in the way of a lifetime of working together.

Lance laced his shoes and stepped into the hallway, and the next thing he knew, Pietro was hefting him up-- he was always surprised at how strong Pietro was-- and holding him awkwardly due to their height difference, Lance’s general bulkiness, and the fact that Pietro had opted for bridal carry rather than the more practical fireman’s lift.

The reason why became clear almost at once, with Pietro tucking Lance’s face into his chest and cupping a hand over his exposed ear, protecting all his sensory organs with unexpected care. Lance’s thermos of coffee rested warm as a puppy on his belly.

Trustingly holding his breath, Lance barely felt it as Pietro ran. One moment they were in the Brotherhood hallway; the next, Pietro was setting him down in front of the office that would hopefully hire Lance as a maintenance worker.

Pietro reached up as Lance gained his bearings, then carefully finger-combed his hair into smoothness. Before Lance could say anything, Pietro cupped his cheeks in cool hands, looking intently into his eyes. “You’ve got this shit, Alvers. I believe in you,” he said in quiet ferocity.

Before Lance could verbalize a response, he was gone again.

* * *

Pietro wasn’t exactly quiet when jacking off. Pietro wasn’t exactly quiet, _ever._

Lance, having grown up in various homes for boys, was sort of used to it. It was actually almost comforting, in a weird way. The sea went out to tide; the sun rose and set; Pietro Maximoff was a horny little shit.

Tonight, though, he was really going for it. “Fuck,” he swore, and did something that sounded an awful lot like slamming a fist into his wall. “Fuck!” He sounded strained; half close to tears. There was a wet slap of skin on skin. Straining grunts. This had been going on for a damn long time now. Lance glanced blearily at his alarm clock-- he had work in a little over three hours-- groaned, and bunched his pillow over his ear. It didn’t quite drown out the sound of Pietro’s frantic panting.

For _fuck’s_ sake.

Flinging his pillow aside, Lance kicked his heel into their wall, twice. It must have worked, because Pietro fell silent for a few moments, before the squeaking of bedsprings re-commenced, more frenzied than ever.

“Maximoff!”

“I can’t,” Pietro finally growled out, sounding both embarrassed and miserable. “I can’t get off, and everything hurts.”

“What do you want _me_ to do about it?!”

“I don’t know! Something-- anything…”

Well, damn. He had to be hard up for it if he was requesting backup. “You mean that?”

“Lance, I need you!”

Oh, fuck. That had Lance’s dry, empty heart turning over like a tumbleweed. He pushed aside the warning bells hat he’d been down this road before; not to go there; not to open doors that would hurt him. Rolling out of bed, he was out of the hallway and in Pietro’s room before he could really think better of it, and Pietro blinked tearfully up at him from his rumpled bed.

He was kneeling, a hand braced on the wall-- the paint was scored with scratches-- his hand tight as a vise around his red and sore-looking cock. He wore a shirt, but no bottoms, and when Lance touched the back of his neck, he felt hot as a furnace.

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. You’re okay. Come here.” Lance coaxed Pietro back against his chest, using a knuckle to brush tears out of Pietro’s eyes. “You’re all wound up and upset..”

Pietro was often upset. He was a high-strung person, and he felt things deeply. Once upon a time, it’d been Lance’s job to unwind those knots that seemed to eat him up inside. He’d thought his arms would have forgotten how to hold this boy, but it seemed they hadn’t; not quite. He ghosted his lips across Pietro’s cheek, coaxing his hand off the wall and into his own, then spitting into his free palm. “That’s it. Come on.”

Pietro hitched a dry sob as Lance’s lips touched the side of his neck, as fingers trailed down his chest. “Come on, baby boy; there’s no rush. Don’t force it.” He thumbed the head of Pietro’s cock and felt it jump in his hand. He sucked softly on the hollow of his throat, knowing his metabolism sped up healing so much that the little bruise would be gone by morning.

“It feels better when you do it,” Pietro mumbled, forehead touching the wall, sounding resigned and shamed. Lance would not acknowledge how that confession made his tumbleweed-heart spin.

“Course it does. Someone else’s hand always feels better than your own.” He brought the tip of his tongue to Pietro’s ear instead; let his piercing clack against his teeth as he rolled Pietro’s tight balls in his hand.

“Mmm,” Pietro encouraged, head falling onto Lance’s shoulder; cock beading with fluid that Lance used to slick him with; providing much-needed lubricant as he made a tight circle with his fingers and began to stroke him properly. He was gratified when Pietro shivered; as his hips began moving with him; when Pietro’s head fell back,  uncontrollable motormouth running double-time. “Please, more; Lance; I want you so bad. Don’t stop..."

Lance moaned softly and forced Pietro sideways, dragging him into a lying position and spooning up behind him, his teeth in the side of Pietro’s salt-warm throat, his hips rolling absently against the boy’s ass. Pietro always did know how to beg prettily, but at the risk of waking someone else up… Lance slipped three fingers into Pietro’s mouth and moaned again when lips closed tightly around them; suckling noisily; his tongue laving each knuckle.

It was with a broken sob that Pietro was finally able to let go, coating Lance’s hand and his own stomach and shuddering violently all the while. More tears leaked from his tightly-closed eyes for Lance to kiss away. When he opened his eyes again, Lance was quick to withdraw, covertly drying his hand on his own boxers. “You okay now?”

“Better. Hey, Lance...?”

But Lance was already climbing from the bed; crossing to the door; shutting himself back in his own room.

Funny. It was silent after that, but Lance still couldn’t sleep a wink.

* * *

“Good luck with your exam, pretty boy!”

For being so sleep deprived (he was always sleep deprived), Lance was feeling rather perky as he stuck his head through the hole between their walls, smirking devilishly at Pietro as he combed his hair out.

“Fuck off, Alvers.”

“No, really. I’m here to be supportive. Anything you need? A ride? A snack? A handjob?”

He had to tease. So long as this was a joke, it wouldn’t hurt. It couldn’t eat his goddamn guts up to leave him alone and sore.

“Go to hell.”

He howled with laughter, ducking out of the way when Pietro grabbed the nearest item-- a battered copy of Rilke’s _Ausgewählte Gedichte_ \-- and chucked it through the wall-hole. It nearly brained Lance with speed and expert aim. Lance was still laughing as he rolled over and snatched for the paperback, waiting for Pietro’s hand to emerge, swiping around, no doubt wanting his homework back.

Instead, Lance put a single apple into Pietro’s palm.

“What’s this for?”

“S’what you’re supposed to give teachers on your first day, isn’t it?”

Pietro paused again. Lance could imagine the perplexed look on his face; it made him want to start laughing all over again. He fully expected the apple to make a reappearance by slamming into his head at quicksilver-speed, but to his surprise, it didn’t. “Maybe I will, rock-brains.”

 

* * *

“ _Young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love._ ”

Lance licked his thumb and turned the page of the battered old book, his right hand on the notes he’d taken. Translating from German to English wasn’t easy; how the hell Pietro juggled so many languages, Lance would never know.

On the other side of the wall, there was only dead silence. Lance wondered if he even had an audience. Then-- “Are you reading Rilke?”

“Well, you seem to like him. You keep highlighting stuff.”

“For my homework. Not for fun. What the hell, you weirdo!”

Ignoring him, Lance continued to read. “‘ _Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another, for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?_ ’ Damn, P; your Rilke guy is into some kinky dom/sub shit.”

“That’s not what it means and you know it, Alvers.”

“Do I? I’m just a rock-brain. I didn’t even graduate high school.”

“Would you stop making fun of me and give me my fucking book back?!” Pietro’s hand thrust through the wall-hole, impatient, fingers stretched. Lance grinned wider. He couldn’t help himself; Pietro was so fun to tease. He handed the book back. Pietro couldn’t know that he’d snuck a flower, a little vinca, between the back pages. He didn’t need to know; not for a long time.

* * *

Two days later, a flower pushed through the hole between walls, falling quietly onto Lance’s floor. He watched it, head cocked, curious, then reached for it, tucking the marigold behind one ear.

The petals tickled his face all day.

* * *

“Shh, shh, my roommate is sleeping.”

Pietro’s voice was playful. Salacious.

Lance opened his eyes and glared at the ceiling when a male voice answered, “Think you can be quiet?”

“I can try. You might have to keep my mouth busy, though.”

“I think I can manage that.”

Lance’s glare darkened to a scowl. Typical Pietro, bringing guys over when the whole family was home. Shameless. This guy sounded like a real loser, too. Pietro _always_ brought home losers.

“C’mere, baby. You’re so pretty. You know, I don’t usually go for Jews, but you? You’re somethin’ else.”

Lance cringed. Definitely a loser, alright. Why the fuck did Pietro keep on settling like this?!

The bedsprings creaked. Lance could just imagine Pietro sitting on this guy’s lap, rolling his hips, offering his throat and a smile. Heat spread in Lance’s gut. He had work in the morning! Why did he have to listen to this?! He considered grabbing his guitar and blaring a few chords to get the point across, but the sound of Pietro’s hitched breath momentarily distracted him.

“God, you muties are so fuckin’ sexy...”

Oh; it was like that, huh? Well...

Lance felt absolutely no guilt in crossing the room and leaning his head and arm through the wall-hole. (Despite their best efforts, every minor Lance-quake made more drywall chip away. It had grown roughly the size of an Easy Bake Oven.)

“Hi! Don’t mind me; just a sexy mutie here, grabbing some of my stuff,” Lance said brightly as both Pietro and the stranger gawked, horrified, at him.

Lance fished around and grabbed a handful of items off Pietro’s desk; some books, some pens; a pair of jeans. “Have fun, kids!” he sang cheerily, and withdrew again.

A second later, he watched from the window as the guy stormed outside and into his parked van, peeling away from the curb in a temper. Lance couldn’t say he felt all that bad about it.

The next day, Pietro hung a large and heavy painting over his half of the wall-hole.

* * *

The bedsprings were creaking again. Fast. Angry grunts emitted from Pietro’s side of the wall. He was either jerking it hard or attacking a punching bag.

Lance hated to admit that the first thing he felt was a pang of hope. If Pietro was jerking it, that meant he was alone. And then maybe, _maybe--_

Fuck, Lance was pathetic. He was so, so pathetic. Still. “You doing okay, P?”

“Like you care.”

That was the first Pietro had spoken to him in days. Lance frowned. “Of course I care. What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“You make fun of me, you annoy me, and then you get pissed when I try to see other people.”

“Not ‘other people’, just ‘douchebags.’ I’m the leader, so it’s my job to--”

“Don’t give me that shit, Lance. I’m not stupid.”

Lance fell silent, a growing trepidation in his stomach.

“I want to transfer to a school out of state."

Wait. Pietro wanted to move out?! “Don’t do that!” Lance protested, scrambling out of bed to stand by the wall, by the unintentional window that had been closed on both sides, by both parties. “Why would you do that? You _just_ got settled at this school.”

“Because at ‘this’ school, not only am I the gay Jewish mutie, but I’m the gay Jewish mutie with a million obnoxious mutie roommates in a shitty mutie house with holes in the wall!”

Shitty? It wasn’t shitty. Not anymore. They’d worked so hard to fix things, to make it habitable, to make it a home. “Don’t go, P,” Lance said again, and heard the plea in his own voice. “Please stay.”

“For what?!”

Lance thought of the flower; the marigold he’d carried until it dried up and flaked away and only then had he thought, _I could have pressed that. I could have kept it._ He’d spent too much of his life fighting for every scrap of everything to just lay down and give up now. “For me. Stay for me.”

Pietro paused. Scoffed. “What are you gonna do with me, huh?”

“What do you want me to do with you?”

There was a pause. Footsteps. Lance’s door creaked open, and Pietro, clad in pajamas, opened his mouth like he wanted to speak. To lecture. To reject.

Lance hurried to him. Pulled him close. Kissed Pietro hard, winding his arms around him, fingers fanning out to nest in his ribs. When Pietro gasped for breath, Lance touched his tongue to Pietro’s lower lip, and Pietro, after a pause, parted his lips to allow him inside.

Lance pulled him to the bed and slid on top of him, pressing him down, hands exploring, mouth everywhere. _Stay. Stay. Please stay._

The next morning, Pietro was gone.

* * *

A season passed.

Lance, busy with his two jobs, had little time to be at home, to stare at Todd’s t-shirt nailed to his wall.

The day Todd stepped into his room to borrow some masking tape, he noticed it; arched an accusing eyebrow. “I was wondering where that went.”

“Take it, if you want it.”

Todd did, using the claw of a hammer to pull the nails out of the wall until the fabric dropped down. Only then did Lance realize Pietro had taken his painting with him when he went to live in some dorm in Delaware. He saw right into his empty room; the room that Pietro was supposed to be in.

The sight made him feel sick. He was up for hours spreading drywall and painting everything smooth. He felt a little better after that.

Fred was long overdue to get his wisdom teeth removed. Lance took a third job until the surgical bill was paid off. 

“I miss him, too,” Wanda said one day, cornering him in the kitchen and accepting a plate of the eggs and toast he was stirring.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Lance said.

They had no emergencies to call Pietro in for, and so they didn’t call him at all. And he didn’t call them, either, until December rolled around.Todd, answering the landline, got a big goofy grin on his face. “Tro’s coming home for the holidays!”

“Mm.” Lance didn’t look up from where he lay under the sink, tinkering and trying to find out what was wrong with the plumbing, hoping desperately he wouldn’t have to call an actual plumber. He told himself his tumbleweed heart was only spilling at the potential price professional repair would cost. It had nothing to do with holidays or Pietro or holidays _with_ Pietro.

Todd tapped his knee. “Are we gonna have a Christmas? I’ve never had a Christmas before, dawg!”

Well. Maybe that was his job as leader, too.

A couple trips to the dollar store produced cheap lights to hang around the place; snowflake-shaped stickers to press to the windows. From her job at the department store, Tabby brought home a little tree. Fred baked thin cookies with holes to string and hang on its branches like ornaments.

After work, Lance handed Todd and Fred some cash and told them they had to buy presents. He was still surprised, somehow, that they actually did it. Messily wrapped bundles began piling under the tree.

Lance was at work when Pietro came home, but when his shift ended and he’d swung by to pick Todd up from the basketball courts. Todd pointed excitedly to Pietro’s window, where a light was shining. “Trobro’s home!”

He sure was. The night before Christmas and the Bayville Brotherhood now all had insulated jackets to keep out the chill. Who would've thought?

“Remember when we all had to sleep together on the floor?” Todd asked quietly.

Of course Lance remembered. A pile of bodies and Todd still nearly died of hypothermia. At least now they could adjust the thermostat just enough to no longer be dangerous.

“We make it work,” Lance said. “We make us work.”

“Next year I’ll make us work, too. I’ll finish school and I can get a new job.”

Lance reached for Todd. Ruffled his hair as they walked inside. “Don’t sweat it, kid.”

Lance heard Pietro before he saw him; chatting amiably with the girls at the scarred kitchen table. It was Fred’s turn to cook dinner, and occasionally his deep voice would boom from the kitchen, joining their conversation. Todd, with all the enthusiasm of a springtime toad, flung himself merrily into Pietro’s lap, squeezing him around the neck. “Bro, bro, bro!”

Much to Lance’s surprise, Pietro returned his hug. “Can’t get rid of me that easy!”

Lance and Pietro met eyes. Pietro had lost some weight, his cheeks looking gaunt-- perhaps a scholarship student couldn’t afford as many meals as he should have-- but he was there and he was all in one piece, and Lance’s tumbleweed heart kicked up like it was being tossed in a windstorm.  _Stay. Stay. Stay._

But Lance knew how to cook a meal, and he knew how to juggle multiple jobs, and he knew how to help Fred with his English homework and he now knew how to fix a sink, but he still didn’t know how to get Pietro Django Maximoff to stay.

“Hey,” he greeted, and went upstairs to shut himself in his room.

* * *

Christmas came and Christmas went, and for a family comprised of two Jewish mutants and a bunch of Atheists, it was pretty damn okay. Fred made too much fudge but they ate it all and Lance only had to work a half-day. They waited to open their presents until Lance came home.

“You got me something?” Pietro asked, surprised, and Lance shrugged. He got Pietro the same thing he got everyone: socks. A blank notebook. A giftcard to a fast-food joint. 

Pietro got them stuff, too. Lance didn’t think he really _needed_ a hoodie printed with Pietro’s university logo, but it was soft, and it was the right size. He wore it to bed because yeah, they might have been able to turn the heater on, but the house was still damn cold.

“You fixed the wall,” Pietro said from his doorway, just as he was getting nestled in to sleep. Lance grumbled. He’d forgotten to shut the door again, and was too lazy to get up and do so now.

“Yeah, well. I figured it’d pissed you off enough.”

Pietro, unable to take hints when he didn’t feel like it, sauntered into the room and sat at the foot of Lance’s bed, shoving at his feet until he bent his knees to make room.

“You want something?”

“I haven’t given you the second half of your present yet.”

 

Lance, very reluctantly, rolled onto his back. He wasn’t deliberately being petulant, and he didn’t want to start anything. He just wanted the heavy feeling in his heart to go away, and it seemed like Pietro was a big factor in said heavy feeling. Looking at him just made it worse.

“How’s _Delaware_?” he asked, and didn’t put too much a strain on the cursed state name. Fucking Delaware.

“Pretty good.” Pietro leaned back against the wall and began sharing about his various classes. Lance, despite himself, found he was listening rather intently. It was just because Pietro was Brotherhood. Lance liked knowing what was going on with them. They were his, after all. It seemed that Pietro really was happy in that godforsaken school.

“You could drive down and visit me sometime,” Pietro added, after a pause. “It’s not that far. Make a weekend of it?”

Lance didn’t have any weekends to spare. He worked most of his waking hours. “What, you want one of your obnoxious mutie roommates at your place?” Perhaps there was some vitriol in his voice. 

Pietro fixed him with a look. “I miss you,” he said, after a time. Pietro didn’t say nice things just to be nice. He said them because he wanted something.

Lance closed his eyes. _Then you shouldn't have left_. That wasn’t fair. Lance wasn’t being fair. He wanted to be fair; wanted to be a better man, a man who didn’t cling too hard to almost-relationships that weren’t really wanted. And yet--

Pietro shifted on the bed, and Lance opened his eyes again, looking up into that face. And then, because he was trying to be a better man, he forced himself to speak. “I think I’m a little bit in love with you, and that kind of sucks because I miss being friends. I miss when I could be normal with you. I think I’ve fucked us all up, P.”

Pietro blinked, minute hints of emotion traversing too quickly across his expressive face to properly read. “Wow. It’s not often people beat Quicksilver to the finish line.”

The hell was that supposed to mean? He shifted, leaning closer, and took Lance’s face in hand, as though he were about to-- no. Not even he would be that cruel!

“Can you not?!” Lance barked, sitting up. The walls around them gave the barest hint of a rumble. “I know we’re all a game to you, but we do actually have feelings, y’know.”

“Gee, Alvers. Thanks for telling me how I feel. I’m so glad you’re the expert on my every thought.”

And this is why they wouldn’t work out; why they _couldn’t_ work out. These walls they kept shoving up, walls of sarcasm and jealousy and bitterness, pushing and pulling and never at the right time-- “Do you want me?” Pietro asked, calm, his blue eyes seeming to pierce through Lance’s soul.

“What--”

“Do. You. Want. Me?”

“What kind of a question is that?! Yes, but I don’t want you if you’re just going to leave all the time, or fuck other people, or... “

“You want me to be your boyfriend.”

”Wh-- yes! Fuck! You want me to spill my guts all over the floor, too?!”

Pietro laughed, and that was too much. Rather than punch him, Lance sat up quickly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed so he could stand and walk away. This was stupid, he knew: Pietro was much more likely to chase a moving target than get bored with a stationary one. But he couldn’t stand to just lay there and have his stupid heart trampled again.

"Stop walking away from me!" Pietro's hand shot out to catch his wrist. "Lance, I hate when you do this. At least hear what I have to say."

_But what you have to say is probably gonna hurt. I'd rather just get blackout drunk and forget this converation ever happened._

Rather than fight him, Lance allowed himself to be pulled back onto the bed. Pietro was quick to slide onto his lap; not trying to be sexy, only trying to keep him from leaving again. At least he didn't force Lance to look into his eyes.

"Why didn't we ever work out?" Lance asked a little bitterly, when the silence began to stretch. "I liked you so much." _I like you so much._

"Takes two to tango, Lancelot. I liked you too. I just hated you always thinking of Ki-- of. Other people when I was around. I'm no silver medal, no compensation prize. Either you want me or you move on."

So how did that factor in all the losers he fucked, or did that not count?

"You said you wanted _me,_ " Pietro reminded him. "Do you? Lance? Or am I just something to keep the lonliness away?"

This was a good question. Had he been using Quicksilver all along? Sure, it'd started out like that. But it'd become more than that, right? A reverse friends with benefits. Benefits becoming friends. Friends becoming _close_ friends. Friends with feelings. Friends with...

"I like you. I want you." It was easier to admit these things with his eyes closed, all too aware of Pietro's warm breath whuffling his neck at steady intervals. At sprinter-strong thigh muscles braced on his legs. Of that coolmint scent that was all Pietro.

Pietro exhaled; a relieved sound that surprised Lance. Had he expected the answer to be anything different?

"Only me?" Pietro clarified, and finally, finally Lance opened his eyes; met that cornflower stare. Pietro was looking uncharacteristically serious; biting his lip, looking at Lance like it mattered. Like _he_ mattered. 

"Yeah, P," Lance promised, throat dry. "Just you."

Maybe this wasn't normal, and maybe this wasn't entirely healthy (since when had anything in their lives been normal; easy; healthy?) but Lance's heart flipped like a snapped ligament when Pietro leaned forward and pressed too-dry lips against Lance's, there and gone again before he could think to close his eyes. Was that supposed to tell him something?

Only, he supposed it must have, because Pietro was looking at him just as intently as ever, almost glaring with the intensity of that stare-- blue; blue; Lance would drown in blue-- and Lance feared he wouldn't be able to find the words, but--

"What about you?" he asked hoarsely, and realized too late that his hands gripping Pietro's waist were pulling him closer instead of holding him at bay. "You want me to be your boyfriend, P?" He didn't exactly have a track record of good relationships, but then, neither did Lance. It was quite possible they were both making the biggest mistake of their lives and careers.

But it was equally possible, Lance couldn't help but to think hopefully, that they were finally making the first right decision in a lifetime of fuckups. God, he hoped it was that one.

"I've thought a lot about it," Pietro admits. "I want to try to make things work, Lancelot. Will you help me?"

His hands slide up Lance's thighs, and they really shouldn't be doing this instead of talking, Lance knows; he knows sex isn't the answer to every problem. But he's nineteen and Pietro is warm and it's been so long and he just wants; with his brain and his heart and his dick and all the rest of him, too, so its with little thought that he lays back on the bed and pulls Pietro right on down with him.

"I will," he says, and can hardly believe that this is happening, that this is really them, when Pietro rubs appreciative hands over his chest, his stomach. As he plays his clever mouth over Lance's throat and sucks lightly at his adam's apple. His own hands stray low on Pietro's back, playing with the hem of his hoodie, want singing a low song in his blood. "We can figure this out together. What changed your mind?"

He really is genuinely curious to this, so he tries to keep as much focus as possible on the forthcoming answers as Pietro unzips his jeans and pushes impatiently at his boxers, skims sharp fingernails over the juts of Lance's hips and into the wiry thatch of dark hair below his naval.

"It was this crazy thing at school," Pietro said conversationally, sounding almost unaffected by their activity although Lance was now struggling to keep his breathing even. "I'd see people and go home with guys--"

Fuck; Lance didn't want to hear about that, only he sort of did, too, so he kept his mouth shut.

"-- and I kept realizing, again and again, all the ways that they were wrong. They were a prick, but they weren't a prick in the right way, not like you." Pietro accentuated the backhanded compliment with a grind of his palm over Lance's erection. "Sometimes it was the way they smelled-- not quite right. Or the way they laughed, not right either. I figured out that I just wanted them to be you, and they weren't."

"Sucks," Lance managed, voice dropping in pitch as Pietro stuffed a hand just on this side of too rough down his underwear, stroking with a loose wrist.

"Maybe I will later. I just want to feel you now."

This made Lance laugh, albiet breathlessly. "You're the worst."

"I love you, too."

And to this, Lance could only look up at Pietro-- at his boyfriend!-- and give a gentle smile. If there was even the tiniest possibility of making them work, of keeping this, of keeping his best friend by his side and in his bed and everywhere else in his life, Lance thought he'd do just about anything to make it happen.

**Author's Note:**

> Todd’s ‘mutant-hating coworkers’ is a reference to [this Todd fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964429/chapters/8891983).


End file.
